Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Simplified Rituals - 11

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And then India gained her Independence from the hated British Rule.

I was then 4 and my didi 6.

And there arrived in our village this start-up:


Kasturi Bai Girls Elementary School 


Everything those days was named for either Gandhiji or his consort...we never knew they had sons, whose names few Indians even today can recite...it would be a Karodpati quiz:


Harilal Gandhi, Manilal Gandhi, Devdas Gandhi and Ramdas Gandhi


I had to Google for this priceless info.

Anyway, this Girls Elementary School happens to be solely responsible for all that is wrong with me:



   




The simple reason was that didi turned out to be too naughty for our Veedhi Badi, and our old teacher there washed his hands off her. 

And Father thought that what she required was a regular school that fortunately materialized just then. And he admitted her there in Class I. And thought that what she needed was a merciless Lady HM. 

Didi went to her new school with immense enthusiasm the first day. 

And she refused to go there from the second day onward. Her complaint was that I was no longer there as her accomplice.

So Father had to revisit this all-girls school and explain his predicament and beg its HM, a bespectacled demon, to permit me to accompany my sister. And the HM was in one of her good moods and agreed, thinking that a dropout on the very first day of her very first year would fetch her a bad name.

So the next day I was woken up betimes and dressed up haphazardly and asked to follow my didi like that proverbial lamb. And I cried buckets and kicked with my hands and feet but to no avail. I was allowed to sit beside didi and just watch the proceedings.

A year passed this way and Father felt it was time that I got into Class I by myself. And so I was demoted and asked to sit down with my junior girls. And I had to continue in this girls school for all of 3 years till Father was happily transferred to a co-ed high school on promotion as HM in a remote village.

Pretty soon there arrived 5 more younger sisters in our household making them half a dozen. No wonder I turned a misogynist for the next 2 decades till I launched my own career at IIT KGP far far away from any whisper of didis or chotto bons. 

During those stressful 3 years I had to participate in things like lezims along with girls on either side like Lord Krishna with his Gopikas: 








As well as Dandiyas:








...Posted by Ishani


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